The Gallery of Lost Species

April 25, 2016
Berkhout, the author of five poetry collections (including Elseworlds, winner of the 2013 Archibald Lampman Award), has written a dark debut novel about family responsibilities and unmet expectations. Edith Walker is a 13-year-old girl who lives in the shadow of her older sister, Vivienne, who's pushed into beauty pageants by a mother living out her own fantasies. As both girls grow up, Vivienne rebels against the expectations of her parents and becomes a talented artist, but also becomes lost in addictions. Witnessing her sister's downward spiral and the disintegration of their dysfunctional family, Edith shifts from envying Vivienne to trying to save her and find her when she disappears. Somehow, Edith has to develop her own sense of self in the midst of it all. Edith finds work at the National Galley of Canada in Ottawa, where much of the action takes place. The novel, a love letter to its Ottawa setting, treads between sprawling national structures and the haunts of the homeless. Berkhout's secondary characters lack development, and she occasionally advances plot by having Edith behave in a way that seems inconsistent with the character the reader has come to know. Nevertheless, this quiet debut is an admirable portrait of a young woman searching for the lost and the mythic. Agents: House of Anansi.